A Change from Facebook Promotes Finding

Facebook is an outstanding resource when you want to share something but when it comes to finding something, Facebook hasn't had a robust tool. This week there's a new feature that will help but it will probably also cause some privacy alarm bells to ring.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook has spent more than a year to fine tune a method that will allow users to search information posted by their friends and to specify filtering the results to include specific people, places, photos, or services.

Some of the suggestions Zuckerberg offered for the new Graph Search capability involved looking for Mexican restaurants that friends like or finding a dentist that your friends have written about.

You may or may not see the new feature. Zuckerberg said that Graph Search will be made available to several thousand users immediately and then rolled out to all users gradually. No specific dates were stated or alluded to.

Graph Search will certainly show up in bright red on Google's radar. Google likes to think of itself as The (note the capital T) search company despite the presence of Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines that are popular elsewhere in the world. Graph Search is a feature that Facebook will be able to monetize easily and therefore it is a direct threat to Google.

Just about everyone uses the Internet to obtain suggestions and Zuckerberg says that it seems reasonable for people to prefer recommendations from friends. Even so, a search within Facebook for Macedonian restaurants in Toledo might not turn up any recommendations from friends. When that happens, Facebook's Graph Search will hand the query over to Bing, Microsoft's search engine. That won't sit well with Google, either.

Graph Search will review pictures, likes, and check-ins. At this time, it will not review users' status updates. Apparently trying to get ahead of privacy concerns, Zuckerberg noted that users will have complete control over what others see. In fact, Facebook announced upcoming changes last December and encouraged people to review privacy settings then. Most people probably didn't.

Also in the "not available" category: Any photos posted on Instagram. Instagram has seen its own share of user problems in recent weeks and leaving it out now is a good choice.

Your Privacy Settings

Whether you currently have the Graph Search function or not, now is a good time to take a look at what your Facebook privacy settings are.

First and foremost: If you have private information that you want only a few people to see, it doesn't belong on Facebook. Anything posted to any site on the Internet should be assumed to be public. Facebook is intended for use by people who want to share information.

So assuming that you're in the crowd of people who have information to share on Facebook, there are still some tweaks that you should consider to protect personal information.

Start by setting your default preferences to share with friends only. You can then modify individual items when you post them by clicking the icon below the post and selecting the distribution for that one item. This eliminates the problem that occurs if you intend to share something just with Friends and you forget to change the Public default.

Review your list of likes. Graph Search will use your likes to make recommendations. If you accidentally liked something or you liked something that you no longer like, get rid of it.

The same is true of your photos. All of them. Graph Search will use your photos and the text associated with them. This also includes photos by others that you've been tagged in. Getting there is half the fun! Click the Lock icon in the upper right corner. Select "Who can see my stuff?" and then "Where can I review all my posts and things I'm tagged in?" The Activity Log will open. Select the Photos Tab. (Whew!) Now you can determine whether your photos are public or private.

The final step, making a list of your friend (and checking it twice), will be time consuming for most Facebook users. Create various lists (Family, Close Friends, Co-Workers, and such). Each list you make can have specific permissions. You might even create more than one list for family members—one for those who see everything you post and one that you'll use when you don't want your parents to know about (even if they're 75 and you're 40). If you'd like to see your timeline as others see your timeline, go back to the Lock icon and Select "Who can see my stuff?" Then click "What do other people see on my Timeline?" The timeline view will be what others see.

Tablets: The Answer to What Question?

In this week's EWeek, Don Reisinger dared to suggest 10 reasons why a tablet might be a better choice than a notebook. Response was immediate and ugly. One poster who "didn't bother reading" the article still felt qualified to ravage it and others piled on. Sometimes the Internet reminds me of recess time at an unruly kindergarten.

I don't agree with all of Don's points but several of them are valid. In addition, I don't plan to abandon my desktop or notebook systems anytime soon but I'm happy that I decided to buy an Android tablet and even happier that I picked up a Windows 8 tablet. The Android tablet provided a good introduction to touch-screen operation and the Windows 8 tablet gave me the tools I need to check e-mail on the go, retrieve data from OneNote, and use Web-based applications.

The lack of a keyboard limits the tablet's capabilities but wait -- my tablet has a separate keyboard. The tablet fits in the case that I usually have with me, too, and none of my notebook computers, except for the netbook, will. The tablet is also lighter even than the netbook.

Don Reisinger's article is here.

Both of the primary research firms that study the use of computers, Gartner and IDC, have noted recently that fewer PCs are being sold. Meanwhile, tablet sales are up. Way up. People who think about what tablet computers can do for them realize the advantages immediately.

I'm not yet buying Reisinger's assessment that tablets are better than notebooks but they certainly are handy. And, despite what some of the people who posted comments to the article claim, they are not toys.

Reisinger says, and I agree, that touch screens are a plus. "Many people have gotten acquainted with touch-screens on their smartphones. They have found that touch displays make screen navigation in a mobile operating system much easier." Windows 8 brings this capability to Windows-based tablets and I consider it to be a welcome addition. Even so, screen-only devices are at a disadvantage when it comes to typing. The on-screen "soft" keyboard just doesn't make it when compared to notebooks with real keyboards.

Another advantage Reisinger notes is price, but I'm not sure that is a valid point, either. It's possible to buy a netbook computer for $300 to $500 but a tablet computer with enough features and power to be considered a replacement even for a modest netbook system will probably cost twice that. The advantage tablets bring is portability and we'll get to that in a moment.

The various app stores provided by manufacturers (Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft) may be a plus, but Microsoft's store is a weak third behind Apple and Amazon. Yes, there are several apps that you'll find useful but if you're thinking about a tablet as a notebook replacement, it had better be able to run Word, Excel, and such.

The ability for a tablet to be connected continuously is definitely a plus (except for the fact that my Asus tablet frequently disconnects for reasons that are apparently unknown to Asus). Most tablets offer 3G and 4G cellular connectivity that means you'll always be connected (and you'll always be paying). As for me, I'll take applications that can work offline and opt for a Wi-Fi only tablet.

Reisinger cites mobility as a key advantage and here I agree totally. "Mobility is a huge concern for many of today's technology customers. And once again, tablets win out. Tablets are easier to fit into a purse or bag, they're lighter, and they're much thinner than notebooks. In other words, they're easy to carry around. Notebooks are easier than ever to carry around, but they still can't match tablets in overall mobility."

Security is a feature that Reisinger cites but I'd take that with a large package of sodium chloride. "So far, cyber-criminals have not been able to put a significant dent in mobile operating systems, making owning a tablet a bit more secure than opting for a notebook." This is false security at its best. Believe me when I say that the crooks are working on this even as I speak.

Reisinger cites several other advantages that tablets have ("Vendor Attention" because sales of tablets are high, "Apple's Best Product Is the iPad" because "the iPad is the clear leader in tablets", "Lack of Breakthrough Innovation in Notebooks" because notebooks all look and feel the same these days, and "Tablet's Aren't Commoditized—Yet" which means that you can find tablets with a variety of features.

To my way of looking at things, those final four plusses are a stretch. Nonetheless, I agree with the overall thrust of the article: That if you're thinking about buying a tablet computer, you're probably going to be pleasantly surprised by what it can do and by what you can do with it.

Short Circuits

Yes, You Definitely Need that Java Update! (Maybe)

Oracle has released a patch that fixes the worst of the bugs that came to light last week and resulted in a warning from the Department of Homeland Security to disable it. Even with the update, Homeland Security hasn't exactly given Java a green light.

If you haven't yet downloaded the update, you should do it now. Many websites use Java to serve certain content. This site does not use Java. We do, however, use Javascript. Despite the similarities of the names, Java and Javascript have nothing in common.

To update: http://www.java.com/en/download/help/index_installing.xml

Java is owned by Oracle and the company issued an update that it says fixed the flaw described by Homeland Security. That flaw allowed criminals to install malware on users' computers and Oracle strongly recommended that all users obtain the update.

Normally that would be the end of the story but the Department of Homeland Security isn't convinced and says that unless users must run Java in Web browsers, it should still be disabled. A private security firm, Immunity Inc., points out that the Java update fixed only one flaw; another remains. The fix makes deploying malware considerably more difficult because the criminals would need more extensive knowledge of Java programming and they would have to couple the attack with another easily exploited flaw.

I have updated to the latest version of Java, knowing that another update will follow soon. Depending on your level of comfort, you may want to consider disabling Java and then re-enabling it only when you encounter a site that doesn't work without Java.

InfoWorld has a detailed summary by Woody Leonhard that explains how to disable Java. As Woody says, "As it turns out, it isn't quite as simple as you might think."

Accused of Running Down a Donkey, Google Responds

The Google Maps Street View continues to expand and a picture of a donkey lying on its side in the dust on a street in Kweneng, Botswana, led to charges from people who are somewhat challenged when it comes to the science of motion, common sense, and psychology. So of course the charge, which claimed that the Google Street View car hit the animal and killed it, went viral.

Fortunately, the super-wide-angle cameras on Google's Street View cars see not just the scenery but also include the car. When Google creates the Street View images, the car is cropped out. But Google keeps the wide-view images.

As soon as the image started getting a lot of play, Google announced that its Street View car had not struck the donkey but the science-and-logic-challenged folks who saw a picture of a donkey on the ground in Botswana were not going to be dissuaded from vilifying Google refused to believe it.

So Google brought out the big guns which (in this case) were big photographs. Kei Kawa, a group project manager for Google Maps, posted images that show the car passing by the uninjured donkey. According to Kawa, "the donkey was lying in the path -- perhaps enjoying a dust bath -- before moving safely aside as our car drove past. I'm pleased to confirm the donkey is alive and well."

So not only were the conspiracy nuts wrong about the death of the donkey (it lived) and its injuries (there were none) but they also were wrong about the "fact" that the Google Street View car hit the donkey (the animal stood up and walked away, as can be seen clearly in the image taken by a rear view camera).

But of course that won't really stop the story either.

GM Plans to Return to Facebook

Last year, 3 days prior to Facebook's initial public stock offering, General Motors gave the old opt-out to Facebook, but now its beginning to look like GM will once again begin running paid ads. According to the San Jose Mercury News, the company's interim head of marketing, Alan Batey, says that discussions are underway.

The newspaper quotes Batey: "We're still actively talking to them and looking at opportunities that come our way. I wouldn't tell you that there's a Mexican standoff here. We just didn't see the value" in the ads. GM was spending about $40 million on its Facebook presence, but that included work done by GM staffers and media agencies. Facebook realized only $10 million from the deal. [I hate it when "only" and "$10 million" occur in the same sentence.]

The Mercury News says that Batey declined to discuss the current talks or to provide a possible timing for GM's return to Facebook. GM still has fan pages but there are no fees for these.